Rivaling Jeeves
by Lemon Goddess
Summary: Bertram Wilbeforce Wooster regales us with another story of petty thievery and impending marriages; meanwhile, Jeeves has problems of his own involving a carpetbag, a tea towel, and very loud shoes.
1. Introduction and Author's Notes

RIVALING JEEVES  
  
A completely unnecessary bit of fanfiction by THE LEMON GODDESS  
Based upon the Jeeves novels by P.G. Wodehouse  
AUTHOR'S NOTES:  
  
This story is a work of fanfiction, which should be incredibly   
obvious; I've yet to master the writing style of the great Plum, and   
I am relatively sure I never will. That would be why he's so highly   
respected. If just anyone could write like him, he wouldn't be such a   
great chap, would he?  
  
But I digress.  
  
No infringement is intended upon the copyrights held by the   
Wodehouse estate, Granada TV, Really Useful, and whoever else has had   
their fingers in this particular universe in the past.  
  
Comments are welcome at lemongoddess@imtoosexy.com, as usual.  
  
Thanks to JWEB, the Drones, Gramarye, and the few brave ficcers in J&W   
fandom who showed me that it IS possible to write decent fanfic in this  
universe.  
  
As they say, I've suffered for my art, and now it's your turn.  
  
* * * * * * * * * * *  
  
"She may beat me at home, she may beat me afield;   
In her way I admit she is prime.   
But one palm at least I compel her to yield:   
I can give her a lesson in crime."  
--P.G. Wodehouse, "A Solitary Triumph" 


	2. Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1  
  
There are a variety of things, all of them true, that one could say   
about Jeeves to raise him to the rank of a demigod. His adeptness at   
folding shirts, for one thing, with a grace in the hands seldom seen   
even in the feet of dancers. His apparent ability to be everywhere at   
once, for another thing. Need I even mention his staggering   
intellect? Even if you're unacquainted with my previous narratives, I   
hardly see any way that you can be unacquainted with the old bean's   
brain. If he doesn't subsist solely upon fish, you will find me a   
very surprised Wooster.  
  
The particular item I speak of, however, is a rarity even among the   
gentlemen's gentlemen of Jeeves' own Junior Ganymede Club - I should   
know, as I have employed a fair number of them in my time before   
discovering this wonder - and that is his willingness to serve   
breakfast to yours truly anytime after 9.30 antemeridian.  
  
I don't tend to favour an alarm clock unless I'm to travel somewhere   
at some ungodly hour. And since there were currently no travel plans   
in my future (I say "currently" with a tinge of irony, and you shall   
soon see why), I awoke in my own time. Nonetheless, as soon as I did   
so, Jeeves was present at the door.  
  
"Ah! Good morning, Jeeves."  
  
There was a small, aunt-shaped pause before he spoke. "Good morning,   
sir. Mrs. Travers to see you."  
  
For a gentleman to be confronted with an aunt before having his coffee   
is most unpleasant, but Jeeves seemed to be unaware of this. I told   
him that it was all w. and g. that she was to see me, so long as she   
understood that I was not to see her.  
  
"She seemed most insistent, sir."  
  
"Well, you can be most insistent as well, can't you, Jeeves? I don't   
know many people more insistent than you when you get an idea in your   
head."  
  
A slight cough. "As you say, sir."  
  
"So get an idea in your head to turn her out until I've had some   
proper breakfast. I'll speak to her then, and not before."  
  
I suspect that Jeeves would have argued the point in the most feudal   
way possible had he been allowed to respond, but he was interrupted by   
the arrival of a looming figure behind him. How a personage more than   
a foot shorter than himself should have occasion to loom is beyond me,   
but suffice to say, it did loom.  
  
"Bertie, you disgusting toad, I should have known you'd still be in   
bed."  
  
"You ought to know by now, aged one, that I am customarily in bed at   
this time of morning. You've come by at this time often enough to   
have picked that up."  
  
Aunt Dahlia - for it was Aunt Dahlia, the nicest of my aunts, which   
isn't saying a great deal - pressed herself past Jeeves and into my   
chambers. "Do tell him to stop being difficult, Jeeves."  
  
"Very good, Mrs. Travers." He afforded me a significant look as   
though to say nothing would give him greater pleasure, but remained   
silent after that.  
  
"I've had to stop by early because I'm on my way to a very important   
meeting. You were just on the way."  
  
"Cuckolding another novelist to do a serial for Milady's Boudoir?" I   
queried, but it reached my mouth stilted, owing to the fact that I was   
being tugged bodily out of bed by the ancient relative. She set me on   
my feet, took the dressing gown proffered by Jeeves, and slung it at me.  
  
"Quite so. But for once, that's the least of my worries."  
  
I noted that this was a change from the s. q. and told her so. My   
Aunt Dahlia, you see, is the owner of the aforementioned magazine for   
women of discriminating taste, which has a nasty way of eating up her   
money (or rather, the money she gets out of my uncle Tom) with very   
little recompense. An occasion in which something grieved her more   
than the ailing mag was a rare one for her, but a worrying one for me.  
  
As I followed her from my bedroom with Jeeves close behind, my brain   
was working rapidly to figure out what sort of trouble I would be   
getting into shortly. Aunts always bring trouble. It's in the job   
description, you know, next to nagging and laying on guilt.  
  
She kicked off by explaining that, rather than prod old Uncle Tom for   
money - given that he was in a surly mood at the time - she had pawned   
a bit of her jewelry. When she went on to say that she now had enough   
from Tom (having waited for the bleak mood to pass and then asking for   
the cash in the name of the mag) to buy the item in question back, I   
confessed myself to be a bit puzzled.  
  
"That's a good thing, though, isn't it?"  
  
"Hardly." She glared at me with little steely eyes. I've never   
considered the eyes in question to be little or steely on a regular   
basis, but she has the extraordinary ability to make them that way   
when the situation demands. I've never been fond of that habit of   
hers, and I wonder even now if perhaps there are long-repressed   
memories from my childhood of Aunt Dahlia turning steely-eyed on me   
and giving me night terrors for a week after.  
  
"The problem is that someone else snapped the pin up before I did."  
  
"Oh, it's a pin, is it?"  
  
"A diamond stickpin, yes. Shaped like a bumblebee."  
  
I told her that it seemed a rather fanciful and childish object for a   
lady of her distinguished age to wear, and she was better off without   
it. She disagreed, and rather nastily, shouting that it had been a   
gift from Tom, and if he discovered it missing so shortly after asking   
for money from him, his brief good mood would be shattered, and God   
knows what might happen. A knock at the door checked her outburst,   
and Jeeves shimmered off to answer it. I suppose he was glad of the   
reprieve.  
  
"That blasted Sir Watkyn's gotten it," she muttered, and here the   
Wooster brain clicked unpleasantly into gear.  
  
"Ah, I see where you're going with this, dear old ancestor," I cut her   
off, and I shook my head with what I hoped was a superior smile.   
"Young Bertram's learned his mathematics well, and he knows that   
Totleigh Towers plus valuable item almost always equals burglary   
performed by yours truly. Well, I'll none of it this time. I've run   
this course far too often."  
  
"Don't be silly," snapped the aunt, and here she rose. I feared she   
might be closing the conversation by going home, which would leave me   
hanging unpleasantly at the end of her suppositions. "You'll do it,   
and you'll do it tomorrow."  
  
I came back, just as emphatically, that I wouldn't do it tomorrow, nor   
any other time. She opened her mouth to come back even more   
emphatically, but then paused, and her eyes softened from their   
steeliness and twinkled a bit. It wasn't a friendly twinkle, either.   
It was an untrustworthy twinkle, and it made me feel ill. I   
considered the possibility of repressed twinkle memories.  
  
"Well, then. I suppose I shall have to take matters into my own   
hands."  
  
I suggested that she do just that.  
  
Jeeves had remained lingering by the door, and saw her out silently.   
I asked who had been at the door, and he replied that it had been a   
Mr. Dimmesdale and, per my previous request, had been shooed away.   
Flimsy had been inviting himself over for meals lately at the most   
ridiculous hours, and I gave Jeeves carte ... well, something about a   
cart, I know ... to dispose of the blighter as he pleased.  
  
"Nasty business, Jeeves."  
  
"Mr. Dimmesdale, sir, or Mrs. Travers?"  
  
I admitted that both were nasty businesses. "But if Aunt Dahlia   
expects me to traipse down to Totleigh and pilfer valuables from Pop   
Bassett -- well, I hardly need remind you about the cow creamer   
incident?"  
  
"Hardly, sir. However, it might be prudent in this particular case to   
do as Mrs. Travers asks."  
  
"Oh, Jeeves, really! It's bad enough that my beloved blood relative   
wants me to go about stealing bumblebee pins from magistrates -- now   
my trusted retainer expects it of me, too?"  
  
Jeeves appeared unaffected by the use of the phrase "trusted retainer"   
- which was a pity, since it usually does the trick. "It might,   
perhaps, be beneficial in this-"  
  
"It's not beneficial in any case, Jeeves. We shall speak no more   
about it."  
  
"Very good, sir."  
  
But I'd forgotten that I DID want to speak more about it, so I broke   
my own vow of silence. "What do you suppose she meant by taking   
things into her own hands?"  
  
"I should not like to speculate, sir." Jeeves frowned as much as   
Jeeves ever frowns, which is admittedly not much, but the trained eye   
learns to spot these subtle shifts.  
  
"Nothing to worry about, is it?"  
  
"Impossible to tell, sir. Mrs. Travers does tend to 'venture forth   
without fear' where it would generally be unadvisable. The tone in   
her voice, however, indicated that she might be hiding something."  
  
After steely eyes and evil twinkles, I didn't want to contemplate what   
she might be hiding, so I shrugged off the whole mess and dropped the   
hint to Jeeves that he might do something about breakfast. He   
snatched it up, of course, and went off to do just that. 


End file.
